From its arresting opening sequence, which depicts a determined, silent busload of athletes arriving at an arena, Tatami is clearly not a typical sports drama. For one thing, it centers on competitive judo, a discipline that has been rarely if ever served up on screen. For another, the athletes in question are Iranian women who have come to compete at the world judo championships in Tbilisi, Georgia. And visually, Tatami immediately stands out for its squarish black-and-white cinematography, which provides the same quasi-mythical vibe as it does in Raging Bull, a film with which it otherwise shares almost nothing in common.

Despite this, the story initially seems primed for the usual arc. Leila Hosseini (Arienne Mandi) is a rising star, and this tournament may well be the moment she reaches the peak of her career. Accompanied by her coach, Maryam Ghanbari (Zar Amir Ebrahimi), herself a judoka who was poised for a world title before being forced to retire from injury, Leila is confident and determined. After missing her initial weigh-in by 0.3 kg, she manages to burn enough calories in the 20 minutes she has to do so and squeaks in. Her husband Nader (Ash Goldeh) and young son Amir are watching with family members back in Teheran as Leila easily defeats her Hungarian first-round opponent.

The judo matches themselves are stylized, taking place on an illuminated tatami surrounded by a perimeter of darkness. We hear crowd noises and British announcers but never see either, which may have been a budgetary consideration but also captures the intense focus of the competitors as they block out everything around them. There’s no real effort to educate the viewer on the intricacies of the sport, but that’s okay—the tension during the bouts and the visceral relief following victory are palpable enough.

The first sign that this may be more than a simple triumph-of-the underdog tale comes when, almost offhandedly, mention is made of an Israeli woman who has also won her first match. After Leila defeats her next opponent, a French judoka, Maryam receives a phone call from the head of the Iranian athletic commission: Leila must withdraw in order to avoid the chance of going up against the Israeli in the finals, since the Islamic Republic of Iran refuses to let its athletes compete directly against a nation they refuse to recognize. As it has a tendency to, politics and bigotry leach into the ostensibly apolitical world of sport.

The coach tries to resist but after Leila advances again following her third match, the demands become more threatening. Both women have family back home, and Maryam confronts Leila, who furiously refuses to surrender her chance at greatness. Officials from the World Judo Association (a fictional organization standing in for the International Judo Federation) take notice and face their own ethical dilemma about how much assistance they can offer Leila. From here on, Tatami is a white-knuckle thriller, its protagonist faced with impossible choices. How important is it to stand up to authoritarian bullying, even if it puts loved ones at risk? Is individual glory important enough to justify a principled stand? (These questions, of course, become less and less academic to American audiences every day.)

There are moments when Tatami slides close to didacticism, but for the most part it’s a compelling human drama with a proud, stubborn, and badass woman at its center. The film’s political context is clearly vital to its co-directors, the Israeli filmmaker Guy Nattiv and the Iranian Ebrahimi, who also plays Maryam. Nattiv previously directed Helen Mirren as Golda Meir in Golda, while Ebrahimi, who left Iran for France in 2008, recently starred in the excellent Holy Spider and Shayda (this is her first directing credit). Mandi, an American actor whose highest-profile work had been in the series The L Word: Generation Q, is never less than totally compelling in the lead. Needless to say, the film was not made in Iran, and it earns a place among the most notable work from the cultural and intellectual diaspora that nation’s repressive regime has created. (Living Room Theaters)

Hot Milk: Another pair of powerful female performances underpin this compelling, darkly lyrical story of maternal dysfunction based on Deborah Levy’s 2016 novel. Rose (Fiona Shaw) and her daughter Sophia (Emma Mackey) have traveled from London to an experimental clinic on the Mediterranean coast of Spain in the hope of finding a cure for the mysterious paralysis that has confined Rose to a wheelchair for years. Sophia chafes at her role as her mother’s caretaker and enters into a relationship with Ingrid (Vicky Kreips), a German Margaret Mead scholar, that proves passionate and tumultuous. While Rose explores a potential psychological origin for her malady with the Spanish therapist (Vincent Perez), the idea that she’s engaged in a Munchausen syndrome scenario surfaces. But this alternately languid and harrowing drama isn’t after such a literal resolution.

Shaw, the veteran and prolific Brit whose film career ranges from My Left Foot to the Harry Potter franchise, has her meatiest role in years and knows what to do with it. Mackey, who was impressive as Maeve Wiley on Netflix’s Sex Education, comes into her own with a performance that captures an unforced physicality and easy beauty that belies her character’s inner turmoil. Rebecca Lenkiewicz, whose previous writing credits include She Said and Small Axe, was offered the job of adapting Levy’s novel and agreed as long as she could direct as well. She does, and quite ably, capturing the seasonless, sun-drenched malaise in which these two willful women ultimately collide in a wonderfully ambiguous final scene. (Regal Fox Tower)

Sunlight: In a theatrical landscape where the options for offbeat, independent cinema are increasingly few and far between, the programming at the Salem Cinema continues to take risks in a way that few screens in the supposedly sophisticated metropolis of Portland regularly do. One of two films opening there this week that aren’t sniffing the inside of a Rose City theater is this charmingly bizarre effort featuring Nina Conti, the British performer best known for her surreal and metatextual ventriloquism act, usually involving a simple hand puppet called Monkey. (If you haven’t seen it, do check it out—she’s hilarious.) Here, in a weird reversal of sorts, Conti (who also directed) plays Jane, a woman who deals with her trauma and shame by wearing a full-size monkey costume 24/7, or darn close to it. She’s wearing it when she happens upon a nomadic radio personality, Roy (Shenoah Allen, who co-wrote the film with Conti), as he’s attempting to hang himself with an extension cord from a ceiling fan in a cheap roadside motel. She cuts him down, and these two messed-up misfits embark on a road trip through the American Southwest in his Airstream RV. He’s seeking closure (and an expensive gold watch) by digging up his father’s grave, while she harbors dreams of running a business that offers banana boat lake tours. It’s a brave and perhaps excessive gambit to hide Conti’s significant charisma under a monkey mask for so much of the film, but there’s enough rapport between her and Allen to make up for it. (Salem Cinema)

Everything’s Going to Be Great: Bryan Cranston, sporting a Rollie Fingers-esque moustache, and Allison Janney are top-billed in this dramedy about a wacky, theater-obsessed family in 1989 Akron, Ohio. But it’s really a coming-of-age story centered on Les (he prefers “Lester”) Smart (Benjamin Evan Ainsworth), a young teen whose visions of Noël Coward, Tallulah Bankhead, and Ruth Gordon (an especially good impersonator!) help get him through tough moments. His parents, Buddy (Cranston) and Macy (Janney), have imbued him with showbiz spirit while struggling to run a local troupe, while older brother Derrick (Jack Champion) is the only one who doesn’t have the bug (“All I wanna do is play football and lose my virginity,” he complains.)

When Buddy receives an offer to manage a theater in New Jersey, which may lead to a five-year contract in Milwaukee, he uproots the family and, following a road trip distinguished by a “Major-General’s Song” sing-along, they set out to put on a show. Will their enthusiasm, considering their almost Waiting for Guffman-esque lack of chops be enough? Will Buddy’s idealistic plans survive inevitable but unexpected tragedy? And, if the family ends up stuck living in a Kansas farmhouse with grandpa Walter (Chris Cooper), will Les’s dreams of artistic grandeur survive? There’s an autobiographical feel to the script by Steven Rogers (I, Tonya), and director Jon S. Baird (Tetris) paints with a generously broad palette, but this is ultimately a minor piece, with Ainsworth not quite up to the task of giving Les a fully rendered interior life. Still, for theater kids young and old, there’s plenty to induce a knowing chuckle or three. (Salem Cinema)

Also this week

Turkish Rambo: After a ten-year hiatus, the live multimedia presentation centered on the 1982 Turkish action film Vahsi Kan returns. Incorporating live dialogue, sound effects, and a score by composer Justin Ralls, it’s a unique cinematic experience that defies easy explanation. (Hollywood Theatre, 6/27 & 6/28)

Blur: To the End: The British band reunites to release its first album in eight years and play a series of sold-out shows at Wembley Stadium in 2023, and all of it is captured in this intimate documentary portrait of the four members and their long-lasting relationships. (Tomorrow Theater, 6/29)

Underground Orange: An American stranded in Argentina gets roped into playing the role of Henry Kissinger in a radical theater project that evolves into a plot to kidnap the American ambassador. Director Michael Taylor Jackson’s first feature self-identified as a “genre-fluid” film, and its protagonist also gets an education in the politics of polyamory. (Clinton St. Theatre, 6/29)

The Last Class: Following his stint as Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration, Robert Reich has become a reliable voice of the left, venting outrage at the desecration of the American Dream that has transpired in recent decades while backing it up with data and analysis. This documentary portrait captures the charismatic Reich as he teaches his last class after forty years as a lecturer at the University of California at Berkeley. It’s both a look back at his career and a look forward to the generations that he hopes to inspire to fight for real and lasting change. (Clinton St. Theater, 6/30)

Also opening

F1 the Movie: A Formula One driver (Brad Pitt) comes out of retirement to mentor and team up with a younger driver (Damson Idris). Directed by Joseph Kosinski (Top Gun: Maverick), and clearly not to be confused with F1: The Motorsport Championship. (Wide release)

M3gan 2.0: Two years after M3GAN’s rampage, her creator, Gemma (Alison Williams), resorts to resurrecting her infamous creation in order to take down Amelia, the military-grade weapon who was built by a defense contractor who stole M3GAN’s underlying tech. (Wide release)

Repertory

Friday 6/27

• But I’m a Cheerleader! [2000] (Clinton St. Theater)
• The City of Lost Children [1995] (Cinema 21, also 6/28)
• The Devil’s Rejects [2005] (Cinemagic, also 7/3)
• The Running Man [1987] (Cinemagic, through 6/30)

Saturday 6/28

• Detective Pikachu [2019] (Kiggins Theatre, also 6/29)
• Dog Day Afternoon [1975] (Salem Cinema)
• It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World [1963] (Cinema 21)
• Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again [2018] (Clinton St. Theater)
• Mimic [1997] (Cinemagic, also 7/1)
• Swingers [1996] (Cinemagic, also 6/29)

Sunday 6/29

• Cabaret [1972] (Cinemagic, also 6/30 & 7/2)
• Hairspray [1988] (Salem Cinema)
• RRR [2022] (Hollywood Theatre)

Monday 6/30

• All About My Mother [1999] (Hollywood Theatre)
• Orlando [1992] (Salem Cinema)

Tuesday 7/1

• Iron Angels 2 [1988] (Hollywood Theatre)
• Total Recall [1990] (Clinton St. Theater)

Wednesday 7/2

• The Clan’s Heir Is a Transwoman [2013] (Clinton St. Theater)
• The Mystery of Chess Boxing [1979] (Hollywood Theatre)

Thursday 7/3

• Class of Nuke ‘Em High [1986] (Clinton St. Theater)
• Insterstellar [2014] (Hollywood Theatre, on 70mm, also 7/5 & 7/6)